The Title Tag
The <title> tag is considered the most important of your on-page search optimization attributes. It is what gets displayed at the top of the browser window and the link in the search results page (SERP).
what you would expect to see in the #1 spot when searching "seattle toyota dealers"
And it is what someone expects to see that gets the click. The Title Tag is always customizable – directly through an interface. Or smaller vendors will update the title for you with just a simple email. That means you can change it without technical hassles. If there is nothing else you do, make sure you edit your Title Tags. A good Title will have a huge impact on your SERP rank and your Click-Through-Rate (CTR) – the number of people who visit your dealer web site.
Avoid making these common <title> tag mistakes: 1) do not place your dealership name first (the above example can get away with it because its also the best search term), 2) DON’T USE PUNCTUATION! of any sort!, 3) avoid using the generic Title that your vendor assigns to you at setup, 4) avoid including non-search terms like your address, 5) avoid duplicate page titles (more on this below)
<title> Tag best practices are: 1) update your Title, 2) use local keywords, 3) keep it under 60 characters, 4) place local keywords first, dealer name last, 5) use the pipe | to separate words instead of punctuation.
If the <title> contains the dealer name first, followed by the dealership address – its squandering the best SEO space for something that no one will ever search for. A vendor should know that and guard against the worst SEO practices for their clients. Further, it is an inexcusable error (site vendors get an automatic 1 – worst in analysis reports) if the <title> contains the word “default” or “home page”. This means the vendor didn’t even set the site up properly. Dealers pay far too much money for a site that is not properly setup.
A comment about Duplicate Page Titles, because its an over-hyped issue. First things first. Just updated your page titles with relevant keywords – a giant step for most dealers. Do that first, then worry about the finer points of SEO Best Practices. Duplicate page titles are not desirable but contrary to what many SEO experts pontificate, your web site is not penalized by search engines for duplicate page titles. Google says so right there. Many SEO experts use this bogeyman because its easy to see and display duplicate page titles using the Google Site: function. They twist the meaning from “you are handicapping your web site in search results” to “Google penalizes your web site in search results”. Google says duplicate page titles just make it less likely your web pages will be competitive for a broad range of search terms. Obviously search engines want you to tell them “what is this page about?” SEO best practices 1) updated your page titles with relevant keywords, 2) use unique page titles, in that order.
